So top of the list, anthropology, mind, mental illness, education, and video games this week. Alva Noe’s essay, my favorite piece of the week, is at the start of education. And I’ve got some videos in the video game section, along with links to good reads. Enjoy!

Daylina Miller and Timothy Lahaie, Community Pitches in to Revive Sulphur Springs
*Read about students and professors at the University of South Florida involved in efforts to revitalize a local community through the establishment of a museum and after school programs for neighborhood children.

Thomas Eriksen, Tunnel Vision
*Great article on the history of the divide between biological and cultural anthropologists.
-For more from Eriksen, see his website:

The Portfolio shares a way to create more compelling, effective and persuasive messages that resonate across the political spectrum. We hope that this research and the way we have applied it is helpful to broader audiences.

Navel Gazing Midwife, No Woman, No Cry
*Model Christy Turlington is working on a documentary about maternal mortality in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Tanzania, and the U.S.

Dave Algoso, Don’t Try This Abroad
*A critique of Nicholas Kristof’s article on “DIY foreign aid” for its simplified view of complex problems and overlooking how local communities know their needs, not outsiders.

Pam Belluck, As H.I.V. Babies Come of Age, Problems Linger
*Interesting article on children born HIV+ and what happens as they grow older and aware of their status. Make sure to check out the interviews with some of the adolescents in the article.

Jen Laloup, Worth a Thousand Words
*The collapse of lobster fishing yields in Chile – the uses of ethnography in showing local ecological knowledge and ecological impact of human activity

War is both underdetermined and overdetermined. That is, many conditions are sufficient for war to occur, but none are necessary. Some societies remain peaceful even when significant risk factors are present, such as high population density, resource scarcity, and economic and ethnic divisions between people. Conversely, other societies fight in the absence of these conditions. What theory can account for this complex pattern of social behavior?

Martin Rundkvist, Thor Heyerdahl and Hyperdiffusionism
*There are amateur archaeologists who have conducted pseudoscientific studies, such as Thor Heyerdahl who used sailing trips to support hyperdiffusionism.

Both Neanderthals and modern human neonates have elongated braincases at the time of birth, but only modern human endocasts change to a more globular shape in the first year of life. Modern humans and Neanderthals therefore reach large adult brain sizes via different developmental pathways.

The world’s largest family to experience Alzheimer’s disease, an extended clan of about 5,000 people in Colombia, many of whom have inherited a genetic mutation that guarantees they will develop dementia, usually in their 40s. Except for its clear genetic cause and that it strikes people so young, the Colombian condition is virtually identical in its disease process to more common Alzheimer’s, which has unknown causes and afflicts millions of elderly people.

A wise man I know once made the same point but in rather different terms: the job of a good teacher is to put a firecracker up your rear-end and light it. How you respond to that — what you get out of it — that’s up to you.

Politics is the enemy of teaching and yet today, everywhere, I see teaching bending itself to politics. Let me explain.

Susan Basalla May, Zigzagging Through the Real World
*Inspiring interview with John Fox, an anthropologist, who decided against a traditional academic career path and instead chose positions in the “real world”.

Adam Liptak, Justices Debate Video Game Ban
*There maybe more stringent restrictions on the types of games sold to minors.
– The Supreme Court recently heard a case about a law in California that banned the selling of extremely violent games to anyone under the age of 18.

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Neuroanthropology. Sometimes it’s straight-up neuroscience, sometimes it’s all anthropology, most of the time it’s somewhere in the middle. Greg is the cultural guy, now interested in bio stuff. Daniel is the bio guy, now interested in cultural stuff. Or, to say it differently, Greg does capoiera, mixed martial arts, and rugby. Daniel does alcohol, drugs, and video games. Two very different styles of recreation.